p its defects in
countenance.

In mixed Governments there is no responsibility: the parts cover each
other till responsibility is lost; and the corruption which moves the
machine, contrives at the same time its own escape. When it is laid down
as a maxim, that a King can do no wrong, it places him in a state
of similar security with that of idiots and persons insane, and
responsibility is out of the question with respect to himself. It then
descends upon the Minister, who shelters himself under a majority in
Parliament, which, by places, pensions, and corruption, he can always
command; and that majority justifies itself by the same authority with
which it protects the Minister. In this rotatory motion, responsibility
is thrown off from the parts, and from the whole.

When there is a Part in a Government which can do no wrong, it implies
that it does nothing; and is only the machine of another power, by whose
advice and direction it acts. What is supposed to be the King in the
mixed Governments, is the Cabinet; and as the Cabinet is always a part
of the Parliament, and the members justifying in one character what
they advise and act in another, a mixed Government becomes a continual
enigma; entailing upon a country by the quantity of corruption necessary
to solder the parts, the expense of supporting all the forms of
government at once, and finally resolving itself into a Government
by Committee; in which the advisers, the actors, the approvers, the
justifiers, the persons responsible, and the persons not responsible,
are the same persons.

By this pantomimical contrivance, and change of scene and character, the
parts help each other out in matters which neither of them singly
would assume to act. When money is to be obtained, the mass of variety
apparently dissolves, and a profusion of parliamentary praises passes
between the parts. Each admires with astonishment, the wisdom, the
liberality, the disinterestedness of the other: and all of them breathe
a pitying sigh at the burthens of the Nation.

But in a well-constituted republic, nothing of this soldering, praising,
and pitying, can take place; the representation being equal throughout
the country, and complete in itself, however it may be arranged into
legislative and executive, they have all one and the same natural
source. The parts are not foreigners to each other, like democracy,
aristocracy, and monarchy. As there are no discordant distinctions,
there is no